Now, a mobile, pop-up hotel concept in Belgium is incorporating shipping containers into a luxurious hospitality experience. Sleeping Around is a "hotel" composed of 20-foot-long recycled shipping containers. Some containers are bedrooms, complete with high-end bedding, a rain shower, an iPod docking station, and air conditioning. Others are designed for eating meals or enjoying a sauna.

"Until recently, an excess of Chinese sea containers have been rusting away in the port of Antwerp. That’s how the owners came up with the idea: to give them a second life and convert these containers into mobile hotel rooms, using only ecologically responsible materials," explains Sleeping Around’s Cloe Daem.

The hotel has traveled just in Belgium so far, showing at a design fair before making its way to the center of Antwerp along the Scheldt River. Rooms go for around 200 Euro, and Daem reports that business is busy: "We hope to travel around the world and to pop up on several great locations! Maybe one day we will have 30 containers traveling the world and going from city to city. Some advice: Keep an eye on our website."

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What a creative reuse of unwanted materials. Well-designedand creatively considered spaces such as these make each of us reflect on thesize of our individual footprint, and how we might live more sparingly. As wellas the obvious positive environmental impact of reusing shipping containers,this also offers a whole new experience for hotel guests. From ourbackground of working with hotels of all sizes (though possibly not ones quitethis small), we know that hotel visitors are no longer looking for traditionalvalue, service and comfort - they now also want to enjoy a uniqueexperience.